2016 June

The June 2016 issue of the Research Digest is now available for download from the CTR Library’s website. This month’s digest provides abstracts for 17 recent publications from the research program sponsored by TxDOT’s Research and Technology Implementation Office​ (RTI). The research projects represented here cover a wide range of topics. This issue includes technical …

Launched in September 2015 as part of the White House Smart Cities initiative, MetroLab Network is a national network of more than 30 city-university (and county-university) partnerships. Its cities and universities are developing technologies and policy approaches that address challenges facing urban areas including: inequality in income, health, mobility, security and opportunity; aging infrastructure; and …

Please help the library by completing this short survey: https://utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe3/form/SV_8umdAZDm6GM7P6J The library is planning to create customized research guides that will help researchers find information. These will include lists of resources such as journals, databases, and websites, and will be tailored to the needs of those conducting research for the Texas Department of Transportation and …

We’ve had some inspiring collaboration with the City of Austin in the last year. Two highlights include the Better Streets Week lunch event that highlighted solutions for our mobility future and, even more exciting, our contribution to the city’s proposal entered for the USDOT’s Smart City Challenge. The USDOT has pledged up to $40 million …

CTR is sad to announce that veteran researcher Dr. Khali Persad has retired. Khali is leaving us to spend more time with his grandchildren and possibly visit his birthplace, Trinidad. We’ll miss his sense of humor and grounded presence. Khali was a pro in the engineering game, with over 30 years of construction, design, management, …

The Data-Supported Transportation Operations and Planning Center (D-STOP) from UT Austin met with representatives from local and state government, academia and industry in early April at a symposium designed to collaborate on the future of Smart Cities. The day-long event explored smart transportation systems, collaborative ecosystems, infrastructure-based technology, regional planning and analytics, and connected vehicles …

This year’s event emphasized tools to improve daily operations as well as practical application of research to create the next generation of engineers. This approach was well-received, prompting one of the attendees to express “thanks for including content more suited for your audience (TxDOT practitioners)—less theoretical academic presentations.” Complementing the day’s presentations was a poster session that …

As transportation researchers, we are all too familiar with the causes of congestion. And as the saying goes, “you are not stuck in traffic—you are traffic.” So we try to do our part to reduce our impacts on the Austin network in a variety of ways, participating in such congestion-mitigation practices as carpooling, bicycling, and …